Personalisation works. Consumers want bespoke, tailor-made customer experiences. Companies know that they need to provide them. But getting there isn’t always straightforward. Many companies take the first step by investing in an array of contact channels. But are these contact channels delivering the personalised experiences that visitors want?
Assessing how well your contact channels are supporting your company’s objectives is a critical concern. If the channels are just sitting on a website, indiscriminately reaching out to different visitor types regardless of their intent, then it’s likely that there will be high levels of abandonment and cannibalisation. If they are only made visible to the right visitors, at the right time, then you will see a higher return and improved CSAT score.
But how do you assess your Contact Channel Strategy?
“ We’ve outlined five of the main questions that you need to ask about your company. Bringing in real-world examples, this blog will help to align your priorities and gain a better view of your current landscape.”
Why have you invested in Contact Channels?
This question will have an obvious answer. You want to provide a rich experience for your customers/potential customers. And you want to be in the best possible position to sell more. But these blanket concerns are more nuanced when you think about why you chose to invest in each contact channel.
You wouldn’t have developed a smart FAQ purely for sales, for example. Just like you wouldn’t have brought in video chat if you knew it would attract visitors who were unlikely to purchase.
Each contact channel has a different purpose. Insurer #CentraalBeheer understood this. That’s why they decided to work with Now Interact. By personalising its contact channel display, it achieved a 42.5% conversion increase in consumer markets.
Why do people visit your website?
Ok, that was an easy one :-) People either go online to browse, buy or to resolve a service issue. These are three overarching sections under which many different visitor types live.
Despite this, many websites take a one size fits all approach to their contact channel strategy. There's least three distinct customer types, but only one contact channel treatment or a lack of clear definition between the engagement/click thru process.
This leads to service visitors in sales channel and vice versa, a prolonged and more expensive cost to serve and finally a really poor customer experience.
By optimising its contact channels (with Now Interact), Swedish telco #Tele2 improved the online experience for its sales and service customers. Meaning service visitors made use of the FAQ and self service content. And at the same time, sales visitors needing assistance were given VIP access to an advisor in the contact centre. #Tele2's contacts through Now Interact are 6 times more profitable than the sales calls generated by static phone numbers on their website.
How do you define your Contact Channel Strategy?
A developing digital world is as chaotic as it is exciting. The sum of your digital whole is made up of a lot of smaller decisions.
Sometimes these decisions are made by different stakeholders in different departments. Is your company siloed? Are all departments working towards a common aim? Have you decided what this common aim is? How does your contact channel strategy affect each department within your organisation?
Alignment internally is crucial if you are to deliver well planned, agile Contact Channel Strategy. In our experience this can be one of the biggest hurdles on the path to success.
But we really can help, even with internal communication and collaboration.
"We have seen it, done it and (as they say) got the T-Shirt!"
How much do you know about Cross-Channel Customer journeys?
Customer journeys are rarely linear. Consumers might start in-store before browsing on their phone. Then they might go home and check the FAQs, or start a conversation with an advisor on chat, before choosing to pick up the phone.
Is your company making sure that data collected at each stage is carried forward?
Are you doing enough to provide your customers with the ideal browsing experience?
Online journeys are often lost when the visitor reaches the call centre. The customer may have to repeat steps already taken online in the IVR. They are also routed towards agents who have no visibility of the caller’s digital journey. This negatively impacts the customer experience.
Working with a leading U.S. based triple play provider, Now Interact’s data-driven predictive routing proved to be 73% more accurate than the customer’s own IVR choice. And when compared to a 30% close rate through traditional IVR based routing, Now Interact’s prediction-based routing closed 52% of sales.
Are you neglecting your anonymous website visitors?
Acknowledging online journeys is critical to success. It’s easier to track the journeys of known, logged in visitors. But what about the masses of visitors on your website who are unknown?
What are you doing to ensure that their online journey prior to picking up the phone isn’t forgotten? What information do the advisors in your call centre have about these visitors?
Giving advisors in the call centre information about these online journeys leads to a better customer experience and higher conversion rate.
#ThreeUK knows this. By using Now Interact’s Agent dashboard it's able to leverage information about a callers online web journey before and during a phone call.
This results in far more engaging conversions with their customers, and for the team using Now Interact’s technology, they average an increase in sales conversion of more than 80% in comparison to normal inbound call traffic.
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